My jaw dropped in what must have been an unattractive visage. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “Did he . . . er . . . make crude advances of an amorous intent? Oh, my poor Fatima, how dreadful! I will speak to Morgenstern most harshly and forbid him to leave his cabin. Professor Emerson will be livid when he learns of this. I cannot foretell how forcefully he will admonish the cad.”

“No,” Fatima said, “I have spoken badly. Soon after the girls left, he came into the kitchen and applauded my cooking. He was dressed in Ramses’s clothing. I almost laughed because they were ill fitting and he looked comical. He informed me that he was departing but looked forward to dining here again.” She took a drink of tea. “I could not stop him. He is big and loud. I dared not speak.”

One of Emerson’s more colorful expletives slipped out of my mouth. My Readers must rely on their imagination, since decorum prevents me from recording it. Morgenstern, a stout German with hearty features, had become as ephemeral as a specter at the top of a staircase in a derelict manor house. His frequent disappearances were exasperating, to say the least, and I briefly indulged myself in an image of him chained to a bed frame.

“Did he say where he was going?” I asked Fatima.

“To his house. I offered to make him a meal so he would not leave, but he claimed that he was eager to resume his excavation as soon as he changed into his own clothes.”

I patted Fatima’s hand. “You did everything that you could to delay him. At least he did not ramble on about stealing a camel and adventuring into the Eastern Desert for whatever motivated him previously.”

More expletives came to mind as I trudged through the cultivation and the expanse of sand toward the dig house. It appeared that Morgenstern had regained his sensibility, in the same way he had after we had restrained him in the hotel room in Cairo. He was quite reasonable after he returned to Amarna, yet within hours had lost his sanity once again. I increased my pace, ignoring the dampness under my blouse. His erratic behavior was linked to the dig house in an obscure affiliation. I knew that moldy bread and spoiled meat led to indelicate bodily ailments (mostly because of Ramses’s experiments in his youth; his conclusions do not require elucidation). Yet Morgenstern had not been plagued with such ailments; with the exceptions of his malnourishment in Cairo and the heatstroke brought on by his inexplicable jaunt into the desert, he had appeared to be robust. As a hostess, I should have visited him in the boys’ cabin, but I had been much too angry to inquire into his recovery.